Wednesday, February 8, 2012

New Map and Campaign Thoughts

I found a cool map at Rule of the Dice blog. The creator of the map, John Williams, has given his permission to anyone to use his map for their games. I've been busy doing a lot of thinking about the map and how I want to use it in a future Google+ or face-to-face table game. I don't think I would use the whole map and just crop out an area to set a campaign in. It looks like Gorgonmilk also found the same map and is using it to run an AD&D game.

World-building and setting creation seems like a real chore these days. And especially map-making, which I have never been good at. It seems the older I get, I have this need to have things "make sense". I don't recall spending so much time in the my younger days of this hobby fretting over details. My style was to flesh things out as the game went along. It made no sense to put a lot of energy writing down pages of stuff, as there was a very good chance the players would go off in a different direction and it would never be used.

So anyway, with this new map, I'm scrapping some material and ideas I wrote about Xhuul on this blog. There are some ideas I'll keep, but much of the material I'm just going to forget about and start over with a new slate.

I'm not planning to detail the entire world of Xhuul. I'm only interested in this small map. What lies outside of it, will have to be addressed if it becomes necessary to do so. It is a fantasy world with some strange elements (i.e. Lovecraftian beings, technological artifacts). For this, I will be using some parts of Carcosa, namely the the random tables for monsters, robots and ray guns. I won't be using the standard allotment of humanoid monsters as low-level fodder (i.e. Orcs, Kobolds, Goblins). Instead I will use monsters such as Firenewts, Bullywugs or just your run-of-the-mill Human Cannibals.

The system used will still be Castles & Crusades. Classes will be Fighter, Wizard, Thief. Since there aren't any 'real' gods, there will be no need for Clerics. The fact is, I have yet to play in any game where the Cleric character was played properly. It seems, in my opinion, that players who run Clerics just pay lip-service to their god in exchange for spells. They never really follow or execute their god's doctrine. So, why have a class whose only purpose is to provide healing, when it can be replaced with healing potions or Biomedic Leeches made readily available? I'm going to drop the Mutant Class as it feels very much like "Race-as-Class" from Basic D&D, which I have never cared for. In terms of the game setting, anyone who is exposed to effects that cause mutation can be classified as a mutant, whether that is your 1st Level Human Fighter or 5th Level Human Thief etc.,

As for Player races, I'm still mulling that over. It's definitely a Human-centric campaign world. If I decide to have Demi-human PC races, they will be a watered-down version from standard D&D in terms of flavor and game mechanics.

I've been making a list of the Monsters I plan to use. Looking it over, I have no Dragons, Devils or Demons. Weird, huh? If I feel like making something new, I'll open up James Raggi's The Random Esoteric Creature Generator and Their Modern Simulacra PDF and roll one up.